


please tell me when you fall in love with your soulmate (i need to know if i'm also in your heart)

by atannatek



Series: please tell me about your soulmate [2]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Male Friendship, Music, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25394353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atannatek/pseuds/atannatek
Summary: jae and wonpil are each other's soulmate and they've known that for months. even if they don't live in the same city anymore, their soulmate bond is stronger than it has ever been before (just like the feelings they have for the other).
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung, Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V, Kang Younghyun | Young K/Park Sungjin, Kim Wonpil/Park Jaehyung | Jae, Min Yoongi | Suga/Park Jimin
Series: please tell me about your soulmate [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839190
Kudos: 44





	1. jae, wonpil and the perks of knowing who is your soulmate (even if you're away from the other)

**Author's Note:**

> -sequel of (["please tell me when you find your soulmate (i need to know who's in your heart)" ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25109707/chapters/60832585)).  
> -this story is set some months after wonpil left town, where we get to see the relation between jae and wonpil now that they know they're soulmates!
> 
> this work was originally posted in my twitter acc ([@dowoonbubbles](https://twitter.com/dowoonbubbles)). you can check it out for other threadfics and social media day6 aus.

Jae doesn’t know anything about theater, but he acts like if he does as Wonpil continues explaining him about the play he went to see yesterday with his new friends.

(New friends as in the people Wonpil’s been hanging around for months by now, so Jae shouldn’t probably be referring as them as ‘the new ones’, but as they aren’t Jinyoung and Dowoon, they’ll always be the new friends for Jae).

Jae is still a bad liar, though —Sungjin likes to point that out every time he has the chance, and it turns out that Younghyun, who Jae only met recently, enjoys doing the same. And that it’s not a soulmate thing, Jae discovered. It’s just them being dicks—, so he limits himself to hum shorts ‘yes’, ‘no’ and an occasional ‘wow, that’s cool’ to avoid shooting himself in the foot. In case he somehow still manages to ruin his façade, he also has a tab opened in his phone with the latest plays that were presented in that theater from Seoul where Wonpil has been going frequently. There are reviews from the plays in the page of the theater— Jae hopes suh092 doesn’t get annoyed if he decides to quote him in his conversation with Wonpil. He can’t give them the credits, so he makes sure instead to like the comment and leave a smiley face under it.

Jae has already gone six times to that theater with Wonpil, and he has to admit that the place is nice—it’s pretty and expensive, but one of Wonpil’s new friends has a relative that works in there that gets them tickets in a lower cost whenever they want to attend a play or a musical show.

He thinks it’s great that the tickets were cheap. If they hadn’t been, Jae would have then paid a ridiculous amount of money just to spend two hours doing his best to pretend he was watching a play when the only thing he was doing was in fact trying to see Wonpil in the darkness of the theater.

(Wonpil had noticed it at some point. He commented it after one of the plays and Jae couldn’t deny it because he’s really bad at lying, so he limited himself to shrug and acted as if Wonpil’s smile at his reaction didn’t cause his heart to run a marathon).

Jae yawns at the phone. Wonpil is now talking about the costumes of the play and how Namjoon —one of his new friends— had been surprised because they seemed as genuine attires of old warriors. He also tells him how Seokjin and Jungkook (more of his new friends) had acted one of the fight scenes outside the theater and how Yoongi (another new friend) had to interfere because they were getting the whole scene wrong.

Jae does his best keep it up with all the names—after months, he knows them, of course, but he still struggles to recognize to who is Wonpil referring in a specific moment considering that his new group of seven friends are a lot more noisier than Jinyoung and Dowoon together.

(A group of seven friends… How did Wonpil even ended up meeting them?).

Wonpil asks him about what he thinks of some problem that Yoongi and Jimin (another of his friends) had that day. It’s almost midnight and Jae is tired, so he doesn’t remember exactly what Yoongi and Jimin each did—he says then that he thinks Jimin is right and hopes that’s the right answer.

It seems to be it, because now Wonpil is talking about how Yoongi should knew that whatever he did would hurt Jimin. Jae yawns again, moving his cellphone away from his mouth so Wonpil can’t hear him. He feels guilty as he doesn’t understand what Wonpil is saying and it’s his entire fault because he’s falling asleep.

He probably should tell to Wonpil how tired he is. He already explained him about the test he’s having tomorrow and how he spent the whole evening studying, so Wonpil would understand—he always understands Jae, but he doesn’t want to do that.

Jae is just too dazed over the fact that Wonpil’s voice is managing to erase the pain that has been on his chest and stomach during the whole day. He did it since the moment he picked up the phone and said Jae’s name, three hours ago when their call started.

Jae is just too dazed because it’s Wonpil the one he’s talking to, so he refuses to stop that.

“Jae hyung?” Wonpil asks. Jae realizes that he closed his eyes without noticing it. Shit, shit. He can imagine Wonpil wrinkling his nose, “You’re falling asleep!”

Jae hawks, “Your voice is making me fall asleep, Piri.”

There’s a whine, “Are you saying that my voice is boring?”

Honestly, Jae doesn’t have any idea of what he’s saying, but he doesn’t want for Wonpil to feel bad because he has kept him in the phone when he should be sleeping.

“No, it relaxes me” Jae says. It’s not a lie and Wonpils is aware of it because Jae’s voice has the same effect over him—that is a real perk of being soulmates, Jae thinks, remembering his dad using that phrase once. “I’ve had a rough day, remember? But listening to you, it calms me. It’s always been like this.”

That last part wasn’t definitely needed; Jae could have just omitted, but it felt too nice to be said.

Lately, there’re many things Jae tells to Wonpil that feel the same way. A clear example of it is how he’s stopped using the ‘bright doe eyes’ and he now goes for ‘pretty doe eyes’ when he answers to the selfies Wonpil sends him every morning.

Another example is how much Jae keeps thinking on Wonpil’s lips. He wonders if he continued with that habit of biting them. The times he’s visited him, Wonpil seemed to have forgotten it, but Jae had decided to pay attention to his lips anyways to make sure that was the case.

He knows that’s a natural thing: soulmates are meant to be with each other, in a romantic sense. Wonpil and he have never talked about the topic, and even if everything with Wonpil feels as natural as it ever felt before, Jae thinks on that detail as a little odd.

He’s been with Wonpil practically his whole life, and he can’t deny the happiness he feels because of him, or how much he misses to have him by his side because there’s this weird need of hugging him and never letting him go.

Jae doesn’t try to overthink it, though. He finds everything related to Wonpil captivating, but in some way, he also did it before, so there’s not a big change on that part.

  
However, about Wonpil’s lips and Jae thinking too much on them—those are two big changes he prefers to keep for himself.

Wonpil must be moving on his bed as Jae can listen what it seems to be the bed sheets against the phone, “Okay, so you want me to continue talking until you fall asleep?”

  
Jae smiles at it; at Wonpil’s sweet voice and the sweet suggestion, “You wouldn’t mind?”

“After all those Yu-gi-oh games this is—“

“You’re really never getting over that, uh?” he huffs.

Wonpil laughs. Jae thinks it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard, “What do you want to talk you about, hyung?”

Jae hums. He turns on the speaker of the phone to put in over his other pillow, right next to his head. In that way, he won’t leave his phone fall or something when he gets to sleep during the call. “Do you know what your soulmate mark is?”

There’s a whining on the line. “Jae hyung, not that again!”

Jae smiles. His eyes are closed; he wouldn’t close them if Wonpil was with him because he wouldn’t dare to miss his flustered expression. “You asked me to choose the topic, Piri. Now deal with it.”

“You’re being mean” Wonpil complains, but he sighs and Jae is still smiling because he knows what will happen next as it’s not the first time they have a conversation like this. Wonpil always gets flustered by the topic, but Jae just enjoys it too much and he doesn’t hide it. “Yes, hyung” Wonpil eventually says. “I know what my soulmate mark is, but you already know it too!”

Jae chuckles, “I want to hear it again, Piri.”

“You’re sleepy, you’ll actually don’t hear it, but okay” he should be wrinkling his nose right now. Or blushing. Or both. Jae is endeared by the image in his mind. “My mark is a sun.”

Jae feels a warm sensation in his stomach that moves to his chest. He can’t control the yawn that comes with it, “Why is it a sun?”

“I’m starting to think you’re lying and you’re not actually falling asleep. Was that a fake yawn?” Wonpil is definitely wrinkling his nose right now. The cutest bunny, Jae thinks.

“I can’t lie” he points out.

“I’ve concluded that you can, you’re just bad at it and everyone knows it.”

“Namjoon said that the other day. Don’t copy him” Jae scolds him. Wonpil whines at it—he probably thought Jae wouldn’t remember that. “Tell me about your mark before I fall asleep, Piri.”

He doesn’t want to, though. No matter if it’s a Thursday’s night and that means he has school (and an exam) tomorrow morning. Jae knows what will happen in the moment the call ends: the pain will return and it will take him at least thirty minutes to manage to close his eyes because of how much his chest will ache because he isn’t with Wonpil.

“My mark is a sun” Wonpil speaks again, and for a second Jae forgets about the pain and the distance between them. Even if he fights against it, Jae’s tired and slowly, Wonpil’s voice begins to fade. “The sun is in the upper part of my wrist, and it’s like the rest of the lines are sun rays. It’s very cute.”

“Why would it be a sun, Piri?” he manages to ask in a mumble. “If it’s supposed to be related to me.”

“I hate you” Wonpil says, but he should be smiling because his voice comes out softly. “Because I’ve always thought you bright too much, and even when we were kids all I wanted to do was following you around because…” there’s a pause, or maybe Jae is more tired than he thought and he didn’t get to hear that part. “Uh, because of it. You bring light to my life, hyung!”

Jae grins. He is yawning again, “I didn’t hear the last part well, can you—?”

“Go to sleep then!”

Before hanging up, Jae hears how Wonpil wishes him good luck for his exam. But there’s also something else that Jae is far too tired to understand.

When he asks to Wonpil about it in the morning, he denies he said something else.

Jae remembers comparing the rest of his friends with Wonpil when he was a child. He’d always think something like ‘sure, they’re cool, but Wonpil already has his soulmate mark and his reaction to my stories are better, so he’s way cooler and I wish he was here with me instead.’

And even if Jae likes his current friends even more than the ones on his first year of classes, he can’t avoid to sometimes make a similar comparison. Though this time, he firmly believe he’s not being an asshole for that (turns out, seven year old Jae was also kind of an idiot like sixteen year old Jae if he considers all of the evidence he has in front of his own past behavior).

No, Jae isn’t being an asshole about missing Wonpil because in his group of friends he’s the only person whose soulmate is living in another city.

There’re at the movies right now because it’s Monday and that means they’re all free from their shifts at their works even if they’re at the beginning of the week, so it’s technically the only day they can go out altogether. Which means that Sungjin is there, and Younghyun, and Dowoon too, and also Hajoon holding his hand and making Dowoon’s ears turn all red, and Jinyoung and his boyfriend, Jaebeom.

Sungjin is sitting next to Jae during the movie, which is great because Sungjin and he get to exchange some comments at the beginning of it as it’s a movie they both have wanted to watch in a while… But then on Sungjin’s left side there’s Younghyun. And it might be dark in the room, but Jae clearly sees at some point how Sungjin leans towards Younghyun to put his head on his shoulder and well, that’s cute and completely appropriated considering they aren’t alone but surrounded by a bunch of friends, but it still makes Jae feel so lonely and the pain in his chest just gets bigger and bigger to the point he has to stand up at some point of the movie to go to the restroom and stop listening to the soft giggles of Younghyun for whatever thing that Sungjin whispered to him this time.

It doesn’t help either that, considering how he’s in the other border of the row of seats, he has to pass right in front of Sungjin and Younghyun. When Jae tries to avoid looking at them he ends up meeting with Hajoon and Dowoon still holding hands, which is as equal as bad. And then Jinyoung and Jaebeom are half hugging when he does his best to stop glancing at Hajoon and Dowoon, and Jae can’t understand how the image of a frowning Jinyoung suddenly looks so soft for him.

Jae almost runs to the restrooms after that. Once he’s there, he goes inside a cubicle and just stands there, realizing until that moment that he had been holding his breath all the time.

He takes out his phone immediately. He writes something to Wonpil telling him about how he feels so bad and if he can call him so they can talk to try to make Jae feel better. Wonpil is the one calling him as soon as he reads the message.

“Jae hyung?” he asks. He sounds worried—very soulmate alike, Jae thinks. Whatever that even means because then it’d represent that everything related to Wonpil is very soulmate alike, and that, for some reason, has Jae blushing right in the spot; in the middle of a restroom cubicle in a cinema because soulmates are popularly related to romance. And if everything that Wonpil does is very soulmate alike, then it also comes in a romantically sense for Jae…? God. Jae’s thoughts about Wonpil just went up in a curve when he saw his friends acting like couples. The pain in his chest got worse because of it. It’s ridiculous.

What’s wrong with him?

“Jae hyung?” Wonpil repeats. Jae snaps out of his thoughts. He needs to stop overthinking. It had worked before and he needs to keep it up with the tactic, “How bad it is?”

Jae sighs, pressing his head against the cubicle’s door.

He can’t stop overthinking right now, but he’s sure that Wonpil’s voice will manage to calm him down like he always do, so he forces himself to give him an answer. “Just my chest again, Piri.”

“Your chest hurting is already a bad signal” Wonpil points out. “It’s normally only your stomach.”

“And for you it’s your head” Jae feels the need to also comment. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to talk about his own pain but only listen to Wonpil, and he’s aware that changing the topic will give plenty material for Wonpil to speak about.

He can imagine him wrinkling his nose. “Let’s focus on you, hyung. You’re the one in pain.”

“We’re both in pain” Jae sweeps the conversation a second time. He feels like he can breathe normally again, but he isn’t lying about the fact that even if the ache on his chest has reduced, the pain is still there though Jae has become better at handling it. Wonpil has also done the same during all those months they’ve been away from the other, so he understands what Jae means. “The pain won’t stop unless we’re together” Jae adds.

There’s a sigh coming from Wonpil this time. “I miss you too, hyung.”

Jae smiles sadly. It’s like if Wonpil read exactly through his words. A real soulmate's perk, Jae thinks.

But before he can comment it out loud, Wonpil blurts out: “I can take a bus to see you, hyung! There isn’t too much traffic at this hour, so I’ll be there quickly!”

Jae feels something softening in his chest as soon as he listens to those words. “Your parents would kill you” he says straight away. “And mine would kill me because they’ll know you came all the way here alone for me and I didn’t stop you.”

Wonpil doesn’t even suggest him lying—they both know how that would end.

“And? We’re soulmates!”

“Good argument, Piri. Are you thinking in becoming a lawyer now?”

“You know that I want to study music like you will!” Wonpil scowls, though there’s a short laugh coming after it and for a second Jae thinks there’s no pain at all in his chest. “But I was being serious, hyung! I’m going to the bus station right now!”

“You’re not going anywhere” Jae gets out of the cubicle, blushing when he finds out that the restroom is not empty like when he had entered. There’re two guys in the sinks and they give a curious glance at Jae. He wonders since when they’re there and how much they heard from his conversation.

Jae walks to the exit the faster he can. Wonpil is whining in the phone, “Hyung, don’t you want to see me? You said it yourself! The pain won’t end unless we’re together!”

“Yeah, but I’m not letting you come to see me. It’s already late and we’re five hours apart from the other, remember? Your bus will be here at eight if we're lucky.”

“And?”

“And?” Jae repeats scoffing. He passes the entrance of the movie room when he knows his friends are still, continuing walking until he’s outside of the cinema. It’d take him fifteen minutes to get to the bus station if he picks the right train. “I’m the hyung here. I’m the one who’s going to see you.”

The whining becomes louder, “You’re really coming?”

“What? Were you joking?”

“No!” Wonpil replies quickly. “I was already texting Namjoon to tell him that I wouldn’t go to the theater with them because I was going to be with you!”

That makes Jae stop for a second. He thinks on his own friends that are waiting for him—if they even remember him, of course. Jae himself is aware of how hard is to think on someone else when he’s with Wonpil, so maybe that’s an argument he can use at his advantage…?

God. Seventeen year old Jae may also be an asshole.

A very confused asshole.

“Don’t cancel Namjoon” he says, returning to his walking. He jumps in the stairs to go through them quickly as he heads to the train. “I know how much you all love those plays. I’m meeting you in the theater. Just wait for me until I get there.”

And that’s exactly what happens. Jae sends a message to Sungjin once he’s in the train on his way to the bus station. Sungjin calls him, nags Jae for not telling them anything before because they did have noticed his absence and he had gotten scared when he didn’t find him in the restroom, and then tells him to say hello to Wonpil from him when he's calmer after the whole nag. Jae also calls his parents because that’s an eventual disaster he’ll have to deal with, and he receives an individual nag from both his mom and dad, though of course, compared with Sungjin’s, they’re far worse and they almost make him regret deciding to go and see Wonpil by his own.

At least, he was enough smart to make that last call once he’s already in the bus and with an hour of distance between his home so his dad’s warning of going for him to the bus station doesn’t work. Jae loses all his permissions for the rest of the month and his dad repeats the words ‘we told you we’ll take you to see Wonpil when you needed, why didn’t you even bother asking?’, but Jae doesn’t care or feels guilty at all.

(Seventeen year old Jae is really an asshole).

It might be a little dramatically, but as the bus moves Jae can also feel something moving in his chest so he isn’t thinking on anything else but on that. And on Wonpil. But Jae always thinks on him.

Jae’s smiling with all the texts he gets from Wonpil on his way to Seoul as he’s on the middle of the play in that moment. At some point, his new friend Seokjin takes Wonpil’s phone from him and nags Jae about not respecting art and distracting Wonpil.

Jae replies with an emoji poking out its tongue. That fourth nag was almost a joke for him after the ones from his mom and dad.

It doesn’t surprise Jae at all when he sees two of Wonpil’s new friends waiting for him at the entrance of the bus station. He recognizes Yoongi first and then it’s easy to conclude that the one with him is Jimin (also, in Jae’s defense, Jimin is currently blond and not with brown hair like when they met, so that's why he only recognized Yoongi at the beginning). Yoongi explains to Jae how he had offered to drive Jae to the theater because they had already been waiting there for more than an hour but Wonpil refused to leave, so that will make everything quicker.

“I don’t blame Wonpil hyung” Jimin says at some point of Yoongi’s explanation. Jae knows those two are soulmates and they are dating, and witnessing their whole soulmate alike interaction causes a trace of unconformity in his chest even if Jae’s body can sense that Wonpil is close. It’s weird because it’s surely related to the fact that they’re acting in the same way his friends did at the movies—like a couple. Yoongi is driving, for God’s sake. Can’t Jimin control himself and stop playing with that cute pendant of Yoongi? “I would also wait for Yoongi hyung!”

“But it’s getting cold” Yoongi mutters. He keeps his eyes in the road so Jae can’t see his face, but something tells him he’s smiling. Definitely for Jimin’s comment and the way he keeps playing with his pendant. “I wouldn’t want you to get sick because you’re waiting for me.”

Jae closes his eyes. Why are they doing that in front of him? Of course, they can’t know about Jae’s new strong dilemma related to soulmates and romance and how he can’t do anything but overthink it right now, but even if they don’t, Jae wishes they just stop talking.

He really starts regretting of going to Seoul to see Wonpil for the mere fact that he’s going to be stuck in that car with Yoongi and Jimin for at least ten more minutes. He wishes he could just skip that part and go directly with Wonpil.

“But then you’d bring me roses and it all be fixed!” says Jimin. They’re still talking about the pros and cons of waiting for the other in their hypothetical scenario.  
Yoongi chuckles, “Oh, so you’re still thinking on that song—“

Jae doesn’t participate in their conversation. He tells himself that he’ll do the same as Yoongi if he was the one driving and Wonpil was in Jimin’s place. It’s a thing he has discovered by himself, he guesses—you just can’t stop thinking on your soulmate because he can’t stop thinking on Wonpil.

It must be that.

There’re six figures standing in the sidewalk in front of that posh theater when they get there. Wonpil is wearing a bright yellow sweater, so it’s very easy to spot him over the other five figures that are wearing black and white clothes.

Wonpil is hugging him before Jae can say something.

Someone coos at their back. Jae doesn’t recognize all the voices from Wonpil’s new friends, but he knows it was Hoseok who did it when Namjoon tells him something about respecting Jae’s and Wonpil’s moment.

Yoongi and Seokjin offer themselves to drive them to Wonpil’s house, but they both Wonpil and Jae shake their heads at the same time in the middle of their embrace, which causes Yoongi to give them one gummy smile and Seokjin to laugh.

And then Jimin and Taehyung start cooing louder than Hoseok did before. And Jae and Wonpil are still hugging the other, but Jae’s aware that Wonpil is blushing with his head buried on Jae’s chest because he’s doing the same with his chin over Wonpil’s head.

Jae lowers his face in an attempt to hide it in Wonpil’s hair. That doesn’t stop Jungkook from joining his friends when Taehyung pats him in the shoulder.

Wonpil’s new friends are weird and theater nerds, but Jae somewhat likes them anyways. They make Wonpil happy when he’s not with him and they’re all surprisingly so hyped by the fact that Jae technically escaped home just to see Wonpil, which, according to Jimin, Taehyung and Hoseok, it’s very romantic.

Jae’s blushing even harder with the comment. Very romantic, very soulmate alike… Why those concepts are so tangled in his mind now? The relation comes easy to him once more: if Wonpil is his soulmate, then it means that Jae is supposed to think on that way on him too. That’s the popular belief, after all.

Wonpil’s new friends leave some minutes after that. To say goodbye, Wonpil has to stop hugging him even if Jae groans quietly (he didn't mean to!) when Wonpil breaks the embrace.

Taehyung coos at that too. “Jaehyung ssi” he says, “We’re not stealing Wonpil hyung from you! We just want to say goodbye!”

“To be fair” Namjoon interferes, “that was Seokjin’s hyung reaction too when Wonpil’s phone kept buzzing during the play.”

“Sorry for missing him so much?” Jae huffs, a brow rose.

“Apology accepted” Seokjin says. He winks at him and Jae gives a look to Wonpil because what the fuck was that? Wonpil only shrugs.

“Make sure to leave Wonpil early at home” Hoseok adds. “We have classes tomorrow.”

Jae’s mouth opens at that. It’s Monday—how could Jae forget the fact that he also has classes the next day? That’d explain how angry his parents were at him. Lucikly, he doesn’t have an exam or anything important for tomorrow except for maybe that Physics report he invested a little much of his time working on.

Someone takes his hand. Jae looks at his side to meet with Wonpil’s pretty doe eyes staring at him with interest. His heart is pounding faster at the mere contact, “What’s the plan for tonight, hyung?” he asks.

And Jae, to be honest, couldn’t care less about that damn Physics report.

Jae’s parents call to nag him a fifth and sixth time because he forgot to let them know when he had arrived to Seoul (seventeen year old Jae is such an asshole with his parents and his friends, as Sungjin also calls after them because he didn’t answer to his last text).

He endures all the nagging with Wonpil next to him offering a reassuring smile as his parents’ voices are getting too loud and can be heard easily by anyone who walks near them. Sungjin was quieter, which is a blessing because in that way Wonpil can’t listen to his surprised reaction when Jae tells him that he’ll be staying at Wonpil’s that night as his parents won’t pick him up until the next morning because it’s already late, which means he’ll be probably missing half of his classes.

When the second call ends, Jae pretends to throw his phone at the river they have in front. Wonpil gasps and Jae laughs at his face and comments something about that being his fault because he picked such a dramatic place to spend the hour they’re allowed to be walking in the city.

(An hour that also includes the time of the bus ride to Wonpil’s house, so they don’t want to waste any minute before they both are scolded by Wonpil’s parents, and that’s why Wonpil had suggested the river. It was quite near the theater).

They’re sitting in the small stairs in the sidewalk surrounding it, and the fact that they aren’t the only persons there despite the hour proves Jae that as Wonpil said, is a quite popular place in Seoul. The other persons there aren’t acting like couples, which is also good.

“Hyung? Can I ask you something?” Wonpil suddenly speaks. Jae wasn’t looking at him but to the people around them, so he is confused to meet with his nose wrinkling. “I thought about doing it before, but I didn’t do it because maybe it could make things worse.”

Jae nods. Contrary to Jae direct questions, Wonpil is so thoughtful when he wants to ask something—Jae thinks it’s adorable. “Tell me, Piri.”

“If you’re always in pain like me” the boy begins. He doesn’t move his cute doe eyes from Jae’s, “why did you come here this time?”

Jae freezes in his position. Does this mean that he has to confess to him everything about how the pain in his chest had gone worse because he was jealous of his friends’ interactions in the movies? He can feel his cheeks turning red at the thought.

“You were the one who suggested the idea,” he simply says.

He is now contemplating the idea of throwing himself into the river to swim away from Wonpil.

Wonpil shakes his head, “But that was me going to comfort you, hyung. You know, like… I thought the idea by itself would be comforting” he bites his bottom lip them. Jae gulps. Oh no, the thing for Wonpil’s lips again; please no. “But this… You came here by yourself even if that would cause you troubles.” Wonpil stops biting it. As expected, it gets in a similar tone of red like Jae’s cheeks. Maybe a tone lighter. “What caused the pain? You didn’t tell me.”

Jae is not sure of what’s worse: the fact that he got jealous for not having Wonpil with him at the movies or how he’s been staring at his lips during the last seconds.

Maybe it’s even worse that he had misunderstood Wonpil’s intentions and impulsively taken a bus to see him just because he wanted to be with him.

“The distance?” he mumbles, shrugging.

Wonpil pushes him so gently in the shoulder that Jae doesn’t even move, “Hyung, you’re the worse liar!”

He bites his own lip as a reflex, though he quickly stops doing it once he realizes that it doesn’t have the same effect on Wonpil, who’s frowning and waiting for his answer. Jae is blushing at that too. Did he really do that only to check how Wonpil would react? It’s so ridiculous.

Jae shrugs again, “It’s gonna sound weird, that’s why I don’t want to say it.”

“You tell me a lot of weird things anyways.”

“Shut up, Piri” Jae pushes him this time. Wonpil giggles and Jae manages to smile at that. Being with Wonpil is so easy so as talking to him, and Jae feels the words coming out of him before he can even realize, “I was at the movies with the guys” Wonpil raises a brow, asking for a silent clarification. “Sungjin, Younghyun, Dowoon, Hajoon, Jinyoung and Jaebeom.”

“Oh” Wonpil nods, grinning, “The soulmate gang.”

Jae squints at him, “Since when do they have a name?”

“We” Wonpil corrects him. “We’re also part of it. I know they haven’t forgotten about me.”

Jae thinks on how he had felt left out with his friends having their soulmates with them and the jealousy that came with it. Jae is immediately happy just by Wonpil’s words. He wonders if it’s really a soulmates’ perk to be able to read each other’s mind because Wonpil seems like he just did it.

“No, we haven’t” Jae agrees. “They were just being so… So soulmate alike” he sighs. He can feel his ears turning red like Dowoon’s usually do. “It made me think a lot on you.”

Wonpil hums, “What were they doing?”

Right. It was obvious that he’d ask for that.

“Sunjin had his head on Younghyun’s shoulder and they were whispering things to each other” Jae explains, his voice going lower and lower and causing Wonpil to lean more in his direction. Jae flinches when he perceives Wonpil’s perfume—he’s still wearing too much of it and Jae probably smells like it too since they hugged for so long. “And Dowoon and Hajoon were holding hands” he continues, babbling. “And Jinyoung and Jaebeom were hugging.”

It’s really ridiculous.

“You mean that they were acting like couples?” Wonpil asks slowly, his nose wrinkling.

“No!” Jae lies. He looks away so Wonpil doesn’t notice how much he’s blushing, “like soulmates.”

“Like soulmates that are dating” Wonpil insists. But his voice… There’s something odd on it. Jae has to turn back at him to see his reaction to understand what does that mean. Wonpil is blushing like him. That’s even odder.

“Uh, yeah. I guess” Jae gulps, taken aback for Wonpil’s pink cheeks. “We must go home. It’s getting dark.” he tries changing the topic for what seems the sake of both.

He is the first one to stand up.

“You’re sleeping in my room, by the way” Wonpil mumbles shyly as he follows him. “My aunt is visiting us as we’re closer to Incheon now, so we don’t have the extra room that you and your mom used last time.”

“Sure” Jae says back with a similar voice. “We’ve done that before, right?”

They have—hundreds of time. It shouldn’t be weird at all then, but for some reason, just talking about it causes Jae to squirm as they walk.

Jae barely flinches at that eighth nag that Wonpil’s parents give to him. He mutters that he’s sorry for also worrying them and acts his best regretful face. Jae notices Wonpil rolling his eyes at the back of his parents because he’s still so bad at lying and it’s really easy to see through him.

They’re sharing the bed for the night. Wonpil’s bed is full sized, so there’s plenty space for both on it. Though even if he isn’t that close to Wonpil and the room is already dark, Jae is blushing and turns around on the bed so he’s staring at the wall instead.

“Are you awake, Jae hyung?” Wonpil asks in a mumble. It shouldn’t be strange for Wonpil to say his name, but there’s something on the way he pronounces it that makes Jae squeal.

“Yeah” he whispers. “You should go to sleep, Piri. Your parents said that you aren’t skipping school just because I’m here.”

He can imagine him wrinkling his nose. “What’s the point of you coming here if we can’t even be together properly?”

Jae blushes. Why did he even think in him resting his head on Wonpil’s shoulders when he said that? Or in them holding hands or hugging? Or even with Wonpil playing with the new earrings that he bought like a week ago but are too long like to take them in a normal school day?

Fuck, why is he thinking on Wonpil and him acting like a couple?

“Jae hyung?” Wonpil calls for him again. Jae doesn’t answer back, pressing his hands in the shape of fists over the bed sheets.

Wonpil doesn’t try to speak in the next minutes, but when he does it, his voice comes out in the quietest mumble that for an instant Jae believes he’s already dreaming and Wonpil is part of what he’s seeing in his dream. Except that he’s sure that he isn’t dreaming, as he hasn’t been able to close his eyes at all.

“Did you say something, Piri?” Jae wonders. There’s no reply. Jae moves in the bed to see Wonpil, but he looks like he’s already sleeping.

Once Wonpil leaves for school, the breakfast turns into something quite different to what Jae have expected it to be considering all those times he had breakfast before with Wonpil’s parents.

It’s an interrogation.

They ask him about how he’s doing with school, and if he still has the same plans for the university as he had stated a couple of months ago. They’re also asking him for his part time job in that fancy restaurant in downtown and if he plans in repeating that incident of yesterday.

Jae tells them that his grades that year are the best one he’s had in his whole time in high school and that nothing has changed for the university situation and about how he’s going to extra classes to prepare for the test. He doesn’t say that much about his work because he’s only a waiter there and the payment is good, but not close to great, of course. And finally, he promises he won’t go to visit Wonpil without telling his parents first, which seems to be the best answer he could give.

Only after a month Wonpil moved from the city, Jae had to start to think about university and his future. It wasn’t that hard to do, actually. After years of going to piano classes and spending that much time on Junseok’s store with Sungjin, Jae knew what he wanted to do.

Conveniently, none university in the city offered the career of practical music. And Jae says conveniently because there’s a good university in Seoul that does offer it. Jae could even apply for a scholarship and one of his teachers even wrote a letter speaking on his behalf after Jae asked for it.

The university was twenty minutes away from Wonpil’s new house (new house as the one that has been his house for months, but as it isn’t the one in front of Jae’s own house, it’ll always be the new house for Jae then).

Twenty minutes is a lot better than five hours.

Wonpil’s mom chuckles when Jae says that out loud, “Well, at least Eunwoo won’t have to be scared of you going in a five hours trip by your own to see Wonpil.”  
Jae nods. He just has to make sure he does well in the admission test he’ll be taking in a month.

The interrogation only ends when Jae’s mom arrives to pick him up. Jae’s glad because of that—because Wonpil’s dad had just decided it was a good idea to talk about how Jae and Wonpil were a blushing mess when they came home last night together and Jae really doesn’t know how to answer that.

Jae gets a selfie from Wonpil like he does every morning. It’s Wonpil’s typical pose showing his fingers in a peace sign only that this time he’s also trying to wink. He’s wearing his uniform, which means he should be ready to leave for school.

Jae takes a picture to send it back. Wonpil replies to it only some seconds after—he calls him cute.

He checks the picture he sent. His hair is a mess and as he just woke up his cheeks are swollen, making him look sleepy. There’s no way that can be cute. He smiles at the comment anyways.

The pictures don’t exactly help to relief the pain for them, but they do get to cheer them up. After seeing Wonpil’s daily picture, Jae manages to get through his days without grimacing at everyone around him (it’s not like his sixteen year old crisis at all, but Jae’s in constant pain and he misses Wonpil, so he does have some bad days and other terrible ones—and add to that a lot of weird days since his not planned visit to Wonpil).

Wonpil has told him he also has bad days. Definitely not a perk of being soulmates and not being together (actually, is there really a perk for them not being together…? Jae doesn’t think so).

It’s late. He should probably start going, but he finds himself unable to move, just as it has happened to him for weeks every time he gets one of Wonpil’s messages or pictures since he went to visit him, which is strange because Jae thought there wasn’t a way he’d ever feel strange around Wonpil.

Jae’s feeling dizzy again, but this time he’s sure it’s not because he just woke up or Wonpil’s voice or the distance between them or jealousy for being the only person in his group of friends whose soulmate isn’t living in the same city. No, it’s because of a picture with a peace sign and the most adorable wink he’s ever seen.

Jae stares at his phone for a while before getting up from his bed. Fuck—has Wonpil always been that pretty?


	2. jae, wonpil and the soulmate realization

The only person that hates Jae’s eighteen year old crisis is Jae himself.

Eighteen year old Jae shouldn’t be worried about anything once he’s done with his admission test and his punishment that involved him only leaving home to school and work is finally over. Those should be his only concerns, followed probably by the fact that his soulmate still lives in another city and he’s forced to deal with the daily physical pain caused for being away for him.

But Jae does his best not to think on the last part, as trying to add it in his list of worries would lead him to think on Wonpil.

And Jae is kinda done with his head being filled with Wonpil this and Wonpil that.

It’s all just getting worse.

They recently saw each other last weekend, when Jae had to go to the university to take his admission test. Wonpil did his best to cheer him up the previous day to the exam as Jae and his mom were staying at his house, and he even forced Jae to go to a quick review of the topics that would be covered according to the exam's guide.

Jae wasn’t surprised of how hard it was to remember which composers where part of the romantic period when Wonpil kept staring at him with his cute doe eyes.

Wonpil had wrinkled his nose when Jae answered Mozart and Bach. 

They continued with the history part during half an hour after that mistake.

Jae doesn’t even want to think on his answers when they were talking about chord progressions. It’s embarrassing.

Lately, Jae’s being so awkward around Wonpil and everything Wonpil-related that it doesn’t take him too long to discover that his eighteen year old crisis is about him having a crush on Wonpil.

There’s no use in pretending that isn’t his reality when as the days keep coming and going, Jae starts noticing details in Wonpil that always lead him to the conclusion of him being so pretty and cool and basically perfect overall.

And Jae thought he knew everything about Wonpil—he’s known him since they were kids, for God’s sake, but there he is suddenly realizing that he listens to the same five songs every time he takes a shower (Jae had walked outside the bathroom while Wonpil was there, just that! And on his second day staying on Wonpil’s house, he had heard the same songs, so he eventually asked). Apparently, it took Wonpil years to find his perfect songs to take a shower. He recommended them to Jae as according to him, they create the best timing, though until today Jae hasn’t been able to even search them because he’s scared he’ll start thinking of Wonpil taking a shower, and like… Being naked because in that way normal people take showers. It’s just too much for him even if he’s already admitted for himself that he has a crush on his soulmate.

Other details include the way Wonpil keeps fighting with his own hair as he’s leaving it grow longer than what it has been in some years (Jae’s witnessed him combing it over and over when they do video calls. It’s so cute) and him humming songs when he thinks Jae has fallen asleep during their calls (when in fact, he’s only too flustered like to answer whatever random thing Wonpil is telling him).

Fuck. Jae really likes Wonpil. 

He doesn’t know what to do with that.

His phone rings then. It’s late at night, so Jae knows it’s Wonpil before he even checks it. Jae groans with his face on a pillow before answering it.

He does his best to act like he isn’t smitten for everything Wonpil says, just like he’s been doing in the last days; always changing the topics of their conversations to keep Wonpil busy talking and leaving him only listening instead. 

But hasn’t Jae always been a bad liar?

“How bad it is that I have a crush on Wonpil?”

Sungjin, standing behind the counter on Junseok’s store, gulps. It's not exactly the reaction he'd have wanted, but Jae guesses he can work with it.

Jae’s probably still bad at creating the right environment for certain questions, as Younghyun had named it once, because that’s the second thing he says to Sungjin since he arrived, after asking if Junseok was there.

In Jae’s defense, he has the time over him and it all must be quickly. He’s still on the middle of his shift and as soon as his break begun he had ran towards Junseok’s store, only two blocks away from the restaurant where he works. And he ran because he was sure Sungjin would have something smart to say about his situation—he usually has some smart comment to say about everything, and Jae desperately needed a smart advice when last night he almost blurted out during his conversation with Wonpil about how he’d prefer to be hugging him instead of the bunny pushy he still has in his bed. And also kissing him if Wonpil was somehow capable of appearing in his room. God—why is the idea of kissing Wonpil so often in his head now? 

“Can you pass me the box with all the CD’s? I have to put them in the shelves” Sungjin says instead of answering. Jae huffs, but does as he’s told. Sungjin takes everything related from his job at Junseok’s store with a seriousness that he can only compare to the one with he used to refer to their piano lessons, which is a big serious.

Jae takes a look at the building of the piano academy in front the store, as the box Sungjin asked him for is right in the entrance and the glass of the windows, now without advertisements, offers him a view of it. There are kids waiting for their parents outside, just like they did for years.

After Wonpil left, Jae continued going to the classes for almost a whole month. When Sungjin asked him why he kept going if he didn’t have the excuse of seeing Wonpil anymore, Jae had told him that he was now going because of him. He’s his friend, after all; he wasn’t leaving him alone. And like Sungjin, he had also find a part time job by that time, so he could still pay for the lessons (though the four days a week became only one, because yeah, Jae had a job, but the piano lessons weren’t that cheap at all).

It also took that month for Sungjin to finally talk with his mom and explained her how he had never liked the piano and didn’t have intentions of studying it as his instrument specialty when he got to the university even if he was planning to study music. 

Though he’s still on his way of thinking of how to explain her that he’s been dating Younghyun for almost two years and they simply don’t have ‘important soulmate meetings’ when Sungjin goes to Younghyun’s house to visit him and get rid of the physical pain that comes for not being with him.

(‘Soulmate meetings’ as in make out sessions—but according to Younghyun, they do help getting rid of the pain, so they aren’t lying on that). 

“You’ve avoiding my question” Jae says, leaving the box above of the counter.

Sungjin gives him a glare, starting to take out the albums that come in packages. “I’m thinking on it, not avoiding it” he scoffs, “Did you never, uh… Did you never like Wonpil before?” Jae blinks at him. “Like, ever?”

Jae hums, “I mean, I’m not blind. He has a nice face” And with that he means a perfect face, but he isn’t getting too deep into details. 

Sungjin rolls his eyes, “Right. So you did like him before, why should it be weird then?”

Until that moment Jae understands he didn’t properly answer Sungjin’s question. “I didn’t like him before!” he corrects him quickly. Too quickly. It causes Sungjin to raise a brow. “I was just saying that I was aware that he has had a nice face for years. And a nice personality.”

“So basically that you liked him.”

“Fuck off, Sungjin. Saying that someone has a nice face and liking him is a whole different topic.”

“Not when you’re blushing like that” Sungjin points out. He has a cheeky smile in his face and Jae’s reaction is to cover his ears before he notices they’re now getting red because of his comment. 

“I swear I never liked Wonpil before this!”

Sungjin glances at him for some seconds before nodding, “Okay, I believe you.”

Now Jae is the one rolling his eyes. “So? How bad it is?”

His friend shrugs, “On a scale from one to then? Zero.”

Jae groans, “That’s definitely not what I was expecting to hear.”

Sungjin laughs. If he weren’t holding all those CD’s, Jae would have easily smacked him at the shoulder. “Jae hyung, you’re aware that being someone’s soulmate means the possibility of having romantic feelings for that person, right?”

Slowly, Jae nods. “But I don’t want to suddenly like Wonpil because we’re both soulmates. That isn’t fair.”

“For who?”

“For both of us!” Jae rests his elbow over the counter and then his face over his palm. “What if this is just me into thinking that I like Wonpil because we’re soulmates and I miss him now that he doesn’t live here and I don’t see him that often?”

Sungjin sighs. “You’ve really been thinking on this, uh?” he puts the CD’s away, “I didn’t happen for me or Younghyun either” he begins saying. Jae tilts his head at the comment, “When we met and our marks appeared it wasn’t like if we were suddenly in love with the other. We were just… Comfortable. Maybe that’s the best word to describe it. We were comfortable around the other and we took our time to meet each other.”

Jae remains quiet and Sungjin takes that as a signal to continue talking. “I didn’t even notice when I started having those kinds of feelings for him. It simply happened, but I’m sure it wasn’t just because we’re soulmates. I’ve been enough time with Younghyun to understand him and know him. And it was the same for him. If you want to take my own experience to somehow help you, think that you’ve had even more time than us to meet Wonpil. To be honest, even if you say that you never liked him before and I believe you with that, I think it’s also kind of obvious that you’ve always been biased towards him.”

Jae pretends to be offended at that, “No, that…”

“You went to years of piano lessons just because you wanted to see him and you were jealous of Jinyoung” Sungjin interrupts him before he can come with a proper bad argument. “And when you were sixteen Wonpil was the only person I never saw you being angry at.”

“It’s because it’s Wonpil” his answer comes out easily. Sungjin raises a brow and Jae moves his head from his palm to glance at his friend with wide eyes, “Everything has always been different with Wonpil” he’s beaming at that. “Even before knowing he was my soulmate.”

“Exactly” Sungjin agrees. He’s smiling too. “So you shouldn’t be afraid of what you’re now feeling for him.”

But Jae’s smile is shortly replaced with a big grimace, “Wait, what if he doesn’t feel the same for me?”

He doesn’t see coming the piece of cloth that Sungjin throws directly to his face. “I’m working, so if you want to have that conversation, you’re going to help me cleaning those windows.”

Jae scowls, “You know I’m on my break right now, don’t you?”

“Then come tomorrow to clean the windows and talk about that” Sungjin takes the CD’s again in his hands and he starts walking towards the shelves with other CD’s near the door.

“It’s a date!” Jae says before throwing him the cloth back. Pitifully, Sungjin is able to catch it before it hits him like it did with Jae.

Sungjin scoffs, “Why don’t you go and have a date with Wonpil instead?”

Jae glances at him. He waits until Sungjin’s done placing the CD’s on the shelf before hitting him in the shoulder. “I’m shy!” he says, but by the way Sungjin scoffs a second time, he also knows that Jae is lying and that he'll probably just comment it to Wonpil the next time they see each other.

Jae catches a cold the next morning. His mom blames it to the fact that he hadn’t taken an umbrella with him the day before when it was clearly obvious it’d start raining and he got home all soaked after his shift in the restaurant ended.

Jae only knows that he doesn’t have the enough energy to stand up from his bed and go to school and less to answer to Wonpil’s calls and messages, which only causes for a deep pain to appear in his chest and soon he’s calling for Wonpil’s name because missing him is also hurting him.

Wonpil is able to come to visit him until Friday. He hugs Jae despite his warnings of having the chance of getting also sick. After his long hug, he makes himself a space in Jae’s bed and lies next to him, moving the bunny pushy that Jae had kept near his pillow so they can share it.

Jae feels dizzy with Wonpil there, caressing his hair and speaking in little whispers about the last play he went to see with his new friends. It was a musical—Wonpil loves musicals now.

“You and your new friends are all in love with that theater” Jae manages to mumble. His throat hurts and his eyes are also closing constantly, so it’s really hard to keep it up with the conversation.

Wonpil giggles. He doesn’t stop touching Jae’s hair, “Yes, but I already told you why.”

“I remember” Jae moves in the bed. He turns his face, but he didn’t imagine Wonpil to be that close to him. He blushes because of that—he’s sick; he shouldn’t be that close to Wonpil but none of them move. Jae hawks before continuing in a quiet voice, “Seokjin is studying to become an actor and he wants to be part of one of those plays someday. Yoongi is going to study something related to the audio stuff so he can also work in a theater because he has something against movies… Don’t give me that look, I can’t remember the name right now. Hoseok… He’s the one in the dance classes, right?” Wonpil nods excitedly. “He wants to dance in one of the musicals there. Then there’s Namjoon who is studying the same as Yoongi and wants basically the same but he thinks going to the movies is cool. Jimin, who wants to major in dance too, and Taehyung too. Jungkook is going with you there because his cousin works in the theater and that’s how he met Taehyung, his soulmate, so he hangs out with you because of that and also gets your tickets at a cheaper price. But he also likes to sing and dance, only that he’s shier about it. And you—“ Wonpil wrinkles his nose. “You went there because Namjoon and Hoseok convinced you to go one day, and now you have this super cool idea of being the person who plays the piano there.”

Wonpil beams, “Hyung, you remember it perfectly!”

Jae is smiling now, “Of course I do. I remember everything that you say.”

“Do you?” Wonpil squints at him. It’s hard to control a bigger smile when his pretty doe eyes are staring at him. “Let’s see, what did I write in my morning message of today?”

Jae groans. He’s sick—he doesn’t even remember reading Wonpil’s morning message. 

“Good morning hyung?” Jae tries nonetheless. 

Wonpil huffs, “And what else?”

“This is like cheating” Jae complains. “I said everything that you say, that’s writing. It’s not the same.”

He frowns, “I don’t think that’s true either, hyung.”

Jae doesn’t have the chance to ask Wonpil what he means with that. The next thing he knows it’s that he’s falling asleep—probably a mixture of the meds he took and how tired he feels as he’s been trying to keep awake since Wonpil arrived.

Wonpil ensures him that he stayed with him the rest of the day when Jae asks him later about it. And Jae has a notion of that because he briefly remembers waking up at night and feeling Wonpil’s arm around his waist and how their legs were tangled.

He also has the thought of Wonpil talking to him as he was asleep, but Jae doesn’t ask about it. Something tells him that Wonpil won’t answer that anyways.

Wonpil whines because the first thing he sees when Jae turns on his camera to start their video chat is a white blur. His reaction makes Jae laugh, and Wonpil’s complains grow noisier at that. It’s cute.

God, Jae really has the biggest crush on Wonpil. 

And it’s not like if he hasn’t tried to do something about it yet—he still has his conversation with Sungjin in a stop as he’s just recovered from the cold and in the past few days he’s been busy trying to cover all his missing shifts at the restaurant and catching up with all the school’s assignments. But even with that, Jae has achieved what he considered an improvement as the last selfies he sent to Wonpil were the best ones among at least the ten he takes every morning now. Jae even sometimes sent some to Woosung to check which ones were the best—Woosung knows about stuff like that. He’s been going to photography courses for a year by now. 

(He had answered with a long ‘hahahaha’ when Jae explained they were for Wonpil. Jae told him kindly to fuck off because he still needed his help and Woosung only laughed more).

Though right now Jae really shouldn’t be thinking on his crush on Wonpil—he means, he’s doing exactly that, but his head should also keep some space for the fact that he just got the results of his admission test.

“Wait, Piri!” Jae says between his chuckles as Wonpil is still complaining. “You have to read it!”

“Read what? I can’t even see the letters!”

“Then get some glasses!”

“Pay for them!”

At least now Wonpil is also laughing. “Okay, I’ll read it for you” Jae moves the paper sheet from the camera. Only then he remembers how bad his hair must look as he went to take a shower a while ago and he didn’t dry his hair. 

He is a mess compared to Wonpil and his pretty doe eyes and his perfect pajama, but Jae still notices the way Wonpil fixes his hair in front of the camera as he’s done many times before. Jae frowns slightly at that. Doesn’t he know he looks great already? He always does. 

“There are the results for my admission to the university” Jae informs Wonpil, hoping that the camera didn’t catch his blushing cheeks. “I haven’t read them yet.”  
Wonpil’s doe eyes widen.

Jae gets his reaction—he’s also nervous about it. The envelop had been over his night table since the early afternoon, and even if his parents asked him about it, Jae told them he would wait to open it with Wonpil as the results, somehow, have an important weigh for both.

Five hours or twenty minutes. It all depends on it. 

“Read them now!” Wonpil exclaims. He’s gotten closer to the screen.

“You had the chance to do it yourself—“

“Shut up and read them!”

“You know, if I shut up I won’t be able to read out loud and then you—“

“Hyung, if I were there I’d beat you up” Jae chuckles at the warning. Even if the movements of Wonpil’s image on his screen are slow, he notices how he’s crossing his arms over his chest. “Just read them!”

Jae does exactly that. He takes more than the needed time reading the headlines and the introduction. His hands are sweating and he stutters at some words, but Wonpil doesn’t complain. He’s just staring at him through the screen, waiting. 

Though all that calm disappears once Jae announces he’s been accepted. 

Wonpil is screaming. Jae can listen how he’s telling his mom that Jae’s been accepted and that he’ll move to Seoul like them. Jae does the same with his parents, and soon his mom and dad are in his room and they are hugging him and telling him how proud they feel for him.

Jae wishes he could hug Wonpil too in that moment, but that’s okay. At least, he knows he’ll be able to do it often in a near future.

“Hyung!” Wonpil screams even if they’re now alone. “Hyung, I’m so happy for you, I knew you could do this! You worked so hard all that time, you always work so hard! That’s why I like you so much—“

He cuts midsentence. Even if Jae wasn’t speaking at the moment, he’s in a deeper silence.

Wonpil’s image turns black. The connection with the camera has been cut down.

“Wonpil-ah?” he asks slowly. It’s hard to pretend he isn’t happy and shocked and confused—honestly, it’s hard for Jae to even speak at all because there’s this mix of feelings in his chest and he feels the urge of hugging Wonpil right now. And kissing him. Finally be able to kiss Wonpil after more than a month thinking on it would be so nice. “Did you just say that you like me?”

More silence. Jae blinks at the screen—he didn’t imagine it, right? Wonpil really said that. 

“Wonpil-ah?”

“I’m gonna hang up” Wonpil’s voice is a quiet mumble. “Let’s talk tomorrow, okay?”

“Wait!” Jae screams. He can listen to Wonpil breathing and only that. Jae gulps, closing his eyes even if he can’t see Wonpil’s reaction right now. “Piri, I feel the same about you.”

“You… You like me, hyung?”

Jae opens one eye. He realizes that Wonpil’s camera is turn on again. He’s sitting away from the laptop, so Jae can even see the way his legs are crossed over the other in the bed. 

“Of course I do” Jae blurts out. Shouldn’t he have prepared some sort of speech for this moment like people do in the movies? He didn’t have the chance to do so, though, so he’s just gonna improvise instead and expect that he doesn’t ruin it. “You… You have pretty lips! You don’t bite them that often now.”

“What?” Wonpil chuckles. It’s a relief to listen to that sound, “Why are you talking about my lips, hyung? You’ve been looking at them?”

Jae’s blushing, but hopefully, the video quality doesn’t make that so obvious. “Yeah, I just said that.”

“Because you want to kiss me?”

Okay, now that’s a complete tease. And if course Jae is falling for it.

“I think I do” he admits with a nod. “Is that bad?”

Wonpil is wrinkling his nose. He looks so cute. “Hyung! How can you just say that? I’m this close” he raises two of his fingers, almost touching each other, “of hanging up.”

“No, don’t hang up!” Jae exclaims. “We’re having an important conversation here!”

For the movement of the screen and how Wonpil is now closer, Jae guesses he grabbed the computer again. “You mean that we’re confessing.”

“Well, I just admitted that I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while.”

“Hyung, you didn’t specify the time!”

“And now you know it.”

“I…” Wonpil shakes his head. “I’ve been trying to do it for a long time too.”

Jae raises a brow trying to hide how red his cheeks are, “What? Kissing me?”

“No!” Wonpil giggles. “Telling you how I feel. I’ve been trying to do that, but every time I did it… I got really nervous and pretended I didn’t say anything. I think I wouldn’t have told you anything if I hadn’t got so excited.”

Jae can remember that; the occasions when Wonpil acted strange in the last months. It makes sense now. There's a feeling in his chest that brings Jae into a smile.

“I actually tried even before those attempts, to be honest” Wonpil continues saying. He isn’t looking straightly to the camera, but at his hands. “Even before—even before we knew about being soulmates I had this type of feelings for you.”

Jae feels his jaw drop at that. What? “I know you didn’t! Don’t worry, you don’t have to pretend you did to make me feel fine” Wonpil adds. “But I did. That’s why… Uh, do you remember when you started hanging out with Dowoon?” he means when they were sort of dating the other. Jae nods. “You spent lot of time with him, and then you’ll spend our time together telling me about him and when you asked me about it I just couldn’t say anything I discovered that was because I had a crush on you, but you were already so whipped for Dowoon, so I never told you anything.”

“Then Dowoon broke up with you because he wasn’t your soulmate and I told myself that as I wasn’t your soulmate I wouldn’t want you to go for the same pain twice. I might have a crush on you, but you’re also my best friend and I care about you.”

It takes some seconds for Jae to go through that information—Wonpil is really so thoughtful and careful; Jae is so lucky to have him in his life, “That was two years ago, Piri.”

He looks at him briefly before returning his attention to his hands, “I think so.”

“Can you have a crush on someone for so long?” Jae wonders with curiosity.

Wonpil chuckles, “Is this really your way to ask me if I still like you even after I already told you it?”

“Well, you kept repeating the thing of having a crush on past tense!”

“Okay, hyung” he looks at the camera again with a smile. “I have a crush on you. Present tense. Happy?”

“The happiest” Jae beams up. “I’ve always been the happiest with you, Piri. And you’re wrong about something. I think I did have some sort of crush for you if I think on it. Or at least it was attraction?” he frowns, trying to find the most appropriate words, “Pretty much sure it was part of my seventeen year old crisis.”

Wonpil hums, “You said that one was about me moving out.”

“Of course, but I was also, for some reason, so into your lips.”

“Hyung! Don’t say it just like that!” Wonpil is laughing again. 

“But it’s the truth!”

“I know it’s the truth, you don’t know how to make up a good lie!”

Jae laughs at that. Once he stops, there’s a short silence that Wonpil ends up breaking. “Does that make us special?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” Jae frowns.

“We both liked each other but we being soulmates really didn’t influence on that” Wonpil explains. “Right?” Jae is suddenly remembering his conversation with Sungjin about the same topic. It feels logical that Wonpil has also thought on the same thing. “Or did it…?”

“It wasn’t for me like that either” Jae nods. “I still felt like the happiest person with you even without knowing it.”

“It was just us then” Wonpil concludes. Jae nods again. “Does that make us special?”

“We’re each other soulmates” Jae decides to say, not mentioning that Sungjin and Younghyun went through something similar, just as probably lots of other soulmates, “We are already enough special” he can’t control a chuckle. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I can’t believe it.”

Wonpil wrinkles his nose, “Jae hyung, it’s been since months, but yes, we’re soulmates—“

“No, that you like me” Jae interrupts him. He really wishes Wonpil were him with him right now. 

“Don’t be silly, hyung. Of course I do” Wonpil replies with a smile. “I like you and you like me and we should both go on a date soon” Jae is beaming. A date with Wonpil sounds like the best idea. “And we’re soulmates!” Wonpil adds at the end, with a bigger smile.

"Isn't that more like a plus for us?" Jae asks.

Wonpil’s pretty doe eyes glance at him through the screen. “Definitely a plus.”

The next time Wonpil and Jae see each other they aren’t in a date like they both would have wanted—is Jae’s small celebration party because he’s been accepted in the university. The only persons invited are what Wonpil calls the soulmate gang and Woosung, so it’s in fact just a small gathering (which is exactly the reason why Jae and Wonpil both refuse to call it even close to a date… They aren’t alone, so it’s not a date; not even if Wonpil is wearing one of his dress shirts).

Their parents leave them alone in the house and the four go to have dinner. Jae’s dad makes a joke about not being worried that Jae might run away to Seoul because Wonpil is with him now. Jae doesn’t laugh, but he’s smiling as he’s been holding Wonpil’s hand since he arrived.

They explained that part twice in the night: one to their parents and one to their friends. The reactions that they get aren’t the ones Jae would have imagined him, as Younghyun mumbles something related to them taking so much time and Jinyoung doesn’t frown at Jae—like at all.

Their friends leave around eleven o’clock. They all hug Jae —even Jinyoung…? — no matter if he’s only going for a weekend to Seoul to take some documents to the university. He’ll be back on Sunday’s night, but Woosung’s hug feels like if he’s never coming back.

Wonpil and Jae go to Jae’s room once they’re gone. Now that they’re dating, Jae’s dad had brought to Jae’s room an air mattress for them to use and instructed Jae that neither he nor his mom expected to find them sleeping in the same bed.

Wonpil’s parents were taking the guest room as they’re currently renting their house to a family with two kids that are probably around the age of seven and eight. Jae’s seen them playing together outside a few times. They aren’t Wonpil, but they aren’t that bad at least.

They both have to wake up early the next day, so Jae and Wonpil change into their pajamas and they prepare to go to sleep as soon as they’re upstairs—Wonpil has the bed, of course (and Jae’s bunny pushy), and Jae is lying in the air mattress in the floor.

He’s aware that Wonpil isn’t sleeping; he can’t listen to him moving in the bed, so eventually Jae leaves the air mattress and kneels in front of the bed. Wonpil imitates him when he notices that he’s coming to talk, and soon they’re looking at the other; with the only light of the room being Jae’s lamp in his night bed.

Jae makes a simple question that has been in his head for a while: “Wonpil, can I kiss you?”

He doesn’t get an answer back. The only thing that happens is that Wonpil leans closer to him and then they’re kissing—it’s a shy kiss and a bit awkward that makes them both giggle in the middle of it, but once the first is over, Jae asks for a second and Wonpil beings a third.

Jae had been right about thinking all this time in Wonpil’s lips. As they keep kissing, Jae feels something in his chest moving. It’s nothing like when Wonpil’s presence reduces the physical pain. It’s even better.

It’s weird, but it feels like closing his eyes and going back to those days when Wonpil and him were just kids playing together; it feels like a thousand memories mixing and Jae feeling the same happiness he ever did when he was with Wonpil all those years.

It feels like if Jae’s back home after a long season being away.

“Does this mean we’re boyfriends now?” Wonpil asks when they finally stop kissing. Jae frowns, wasn’t that obvious? “Oh my God, my boyfriend goes to the university” Wonpil continues without getting a reply. “I’m gonna be the coolest person in my class after this.”

Jae hums, “I don’t know how my reputation will be when someone knows that I’m dating someone from high school.”

“Just show them your mark” Wonpil mumbles before giving him a short peck. “That’s the key for everything.”

Jae hugs Wonpil until he falls asleep and he ends up returning to the air mattress because he really doesn’t want to get into another trouble with his parents. It’s like if he’s simply slept a couple of hours when there’s someone calling for his name and shaking his shoulders.

He opens his eyes. It’s Wonpil. He’s looking at him with his pretty doe eyes and a big smile. “Jae hyung, wake up!” he says in an excited voice, “We’re going home!”

Jae chuckles—what is Wonpil exactly calling Jae’s home now? Seoul? The campus they’re visiting? Both options are wrong, though, but Jae has a lot of time to explain him how being with him has always felt like being home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading this! i hope you enjoyed this as much as i did.  
> for any questions or clarifications, you can contact me on twitter: [@dowoonbubbles](https://twitter.com/dowoonbubbles)
> 
> also, don't get surprised if one day i post another part of how jae's doing in university and his relationship with wonpil


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